Leeds v Southampton LIVE: Championship play-off final result and reaction as Saints dramatically promoted

After the expensive relegation, the lucrative promotion. Southampton contrived to finish bottom of the Premier League in a year when they spent some £160m, had three managers and only mustered six wins. They return to the world’s richest league courtesy of the world’s richest game, their prize for play-off victory probably beginning at £140m and, if they stay up, worth rather more. If Bobby Stokes, the hero of the 1976 FA Cup final, still has the most famous Wembley winner in Southampton’s history, Adam Armstrong has the most valuable. For Leeds, consigned to another season in the Championship, it ranks as the most costly.

A sixth unsuccessful play-off campaign means they are still without a win at Wembley since 1992. On the 35th anniversary of Don Revie’s death, the Damned United remain incapable of escaping their past. There was another kind of unwanted sequel: a third defeat to Southampton this season, with Armstrong scoring in all. There were times when Leeds looked like the finest team in the Championship but that trio of losses to Southampton means that, unlike Saints and Leicester, they have not rebounded to the top flight.

In the dugouts, the subplot started in Norfolk in 2017. For Russell Martin, the Norwich captain bombed out to train with the Under 23s seven years ago, it was revenge on Daniel Farke, the manager who exiled him. Martin has reinvented himself as a coach and this was his first promotion in charge. Indeed, there was a danger his reign would descend into disaster when Saints lost four consecutive games in September. A win over Farke’s Leeds was the catalyst for a 25-game unbeaten run. Now another has made him a Premier League manager.

Read Richard Jolly’s full report from Wembley:

Captain Jack Stephens and goalscorer Adam Armstrong discuss the dramatic victory over Leeds

Here’s the moment Southampton’s Premier League return was sealed!

Leeds’s play-off heartache continues. Six attempts to go up via the play-offs, six failures. But Southampton are back up and Russell Martin’s men will be playing Premier League football.

AND THEY’VE DONE IT! SOUTHAMPTON ARE BACK IN THE PREMIER LEAGUE.

At the first time of asking, they’ve bounced back from relegation and gone up through the Championship play-offs.

90+10 mins: Saints fans in full, full voice now. Their team are just seconds away...

James’s cross is thumped all the way up to the halfway line and Southampton then win a throw-in on the right. They’re all but there!

90+9 mins: Leeds pumping the ball long. Crossed into the box and Anthony handballs it trying to control. Free-kick for Southampton.

90+8 mins: Remember, nine minutes of injury-time were signalled but it will be more than that after the James and Walker-Peters head injuries.

McCarthy off his line again to punch away and Armstrong then completes the clearance up to Aribo. Leeds with a throw-in deep in their own half.

90+7 mins: A throw-in and then a free-kick for Southampton in Leeds territory as Rodon commits the foul. This is vital seconds ticking off the clock.